


Cloudless everyday you fall

by crimsonepitaph



Series: Soldiers Verse [6]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, M/M, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: Jared tries to deal with all the changes in their lives, but it's not that simple. An unexpected proposal comes for both Jared and Jensen.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Series: Soldiers Verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/786189
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





	Cloudless everyday you fall

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1:** Many, many thanks to [borgmama1of5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/borgmama1of5), who still has the patience to do this with me!  
>  **Author's note #2:** The title is a lyric from _Pink Floyd - Echoes_.  
>  **Author's note #3:** This is quite a long way from the initial story, so, a brief summary of everything that's happened if needed:
> 
> Jared leads an elite counterterrorist team. When he meets the new guy, Jensen, sparks fly. Jared knows getting involved is a bad idea, but Jensen's determination is hard to resist, and, after heated discussions, they get together. However, adjusting to this relationship means missions become more complicated, decisions harder and stakes higher than ever before. That's why when they go wrong - when a teammate like Chris does not make it out, sacrificing himself to save Jared and Jensen, and what happens after is the stuff of nightmares, leading Jared to make the decision to stay behind to face certain death to give his remaining teammates a chance to escape - consequences reverberate on a much larger scale. 
> 
> To his suprise, it is not death that Jared faces, but torture, becoming a toy for people who want to do the same harm that's been done to them. However, an ocean away, and still recuperating from his own injuries, Jensen refuses to give up hope. While his commanding officer looks the other way, Jensen leads an unauthorized mission that rescues a broken Jared, who has to accept that because of his injuries he can no longer work in the field. As Jared struggles with losing the position that has motivated his life, Jensen continues on the team - that is, until he is nearly killed on a mission. The time spent in recovery helps Jensen settle on a decision he's been pondering for a while, that of quitting the team. Now, they both have to find their new place in the military and in relationship with each other.

Jared always wakes up before Jensen. Most of the time he leaves the bed seconds after his eyes fly open. The aches of his body beg for movement. But today...today he’s taking Cortese’s advice.

_Sit with the pain, Sergeant Padalecki._

Whatever the fuck that means.

_Don’t run from it. Feel it._

Jared had spent an entire afternoon trying to figure out if Cortese meant that literally or metaphorically.

It’s fucking impossible. To Jared, stillness feels unnatural. The silence before sunrise, the promise of hope that finds its way through the space where the curtains don’t meet. Light. Soft. The dream of days emptied, free of the anxiety, the raw feelings that leave him wide open.

It hurts to think about how much he loves Jensen. Or - is it fear? The pain in his chest, the tingling, the _bad_ that spreads, because Jensen’s name is linked with _death._

_Count to ten._

Oh, fuck it, and him, ten ways to Sunday. Jared’s _trying._ He rubs a hand over his bald head. He closes his eyes. He balls his left hand into a fist. Open, closed. Open, closed. His right hand angles under his head.

Ants are crawling under his skin.

Behind closed eyes he sees dust-covered roads ridden with cadavers.

His mind spirals.

Ten. The ten seconds it took Jared to gather up the courage to end Chad’s suffering. The sound of the bullet. The way Chad looked at him the last time. The look Jared forced himself to take of the mound of mangled flesh that had been his best friend.

_Ten._

_Eight._

_Seve_ _n_ _._

A hand is touching his. There is breathing and the rustle of sheets.

Jensen’s voice.

“Morning.”

_Two._

Scratchy. Ragged, a bit nasal.

The camera in Jared’s head refocuses.

Goes from the close shot of hell to a panoramic built out of all the details that make Jensen the man Jared loves.

Strands of Jensen’s closely cropped hair spiking in ten different directions. Green eyes, eyelashes still heavy with sleep, Jensen’s languid body. A grimace as the brightness from that goddamn space in the middle of their window hits those just-opened eyes.

_One._

“Hey,” Jared replies, and the smile that spreads across his face is almost genuine. The tingling isn’t gone - but Jensen’s voice is enough to cover all of Jared’s knotted thoughts with a blanket of safety. Jensen’s slow movements exiles them into corners, hidden from sight.

Jared reaches for Jensen. It’s instinct, like he’d reach for a weapon. His right hand goes to the bare skin in the gap between Jensen’s shorts and t-shirt.

It always takes long seconds for Jensen to wake up.

_Really,_ get with the program, Jared’s hand says.

Jared’s fingers travel up under the black cotton t-shirt until they reach Jensen’s chest, where they stop over the scarred tissue.

This. These fragmented moments.

The vastness of the possibilities of happiness wrestling against the concrete, too real evidence that these moments are rarely enough. Fluid, then sudden stop. Fear, punctuating almost every moment of their lives.

Jared wishes he could be stronger. But his pattern is to run.

The only emotion he can stay with is that of never having done enough.

He retreats, pulls his hand from Jensen’s warmth. Sits up. The seconds spent on the edge of the bed fighting the urge to flee are an unspoken invitation for Jensen to ask him to stay.

Jensen doesn’t say anything.

So Jared does what he always does - showers, puts on uniform, grabs keys, drives, salutes, yells, pretends he’s something more than he is, pretends he understands what is the point of all of this, leads, jokes, grins, screams, scream so hard that his insides crack like glass, because, really, what else can be done?

Tom and Jerry episodes only work if there’s an audience to watch.

~

Cortese smiles at him.

“Good afternoon, Sergeant Padalecki.”

The fuck it is.

It hasn’t been good since Jensen’s come home from the hospital. No, it’s been a desperate attempt at pretending he isn’t imploding. Jared’s thoughts used to be trains coming and going in a busy station. But now the tracks are out of alignment and the trains keep derailing.

Instead of being an asshole, Jared nods mechanically as his fingers knead his thighs. Jared needs physical pain to take his mind off the unseen one. He hates his hands today, hates the way that when he leaves them to rest they begin trembling visibly.

“You’re anxious.”

Jared barely refrains from rolling his eyes and saying _No shit._

But, hell, it’s not Cortese’s fault how he’s feeling.

“Have you tried punching something?”

“What?”

Cortese waits him out.

“Is that standard psychotherapy?”

Cortese meets Jared’s confused gaze. “Usually, I am adamant about you understanding your emotions on your own and reaching your own conclusions about them…but today, I think it’d help you more if I told you what I think is happening.” She doesn’t wait for an acknowledgment from Jared. “There have been a lot of major events in your life all at once, starting with Jensen getting hurt to him quitting the team, all coming while you’re still dealing with your own ordeal. We’ve talked about this, Sergeant, and you agreed about the way you learned to handle things, the way you internalize many, if not all, of the things that happen to you and try to keep that anxiety and fear locked down, needs to change to allow you a better quality of life.”

Jared huffs.

Yeah. Sure. Don’t think about it.

Turn the faucet off.

Except it’s not a faucet. It’s a whole fucking plumbing system that needs to be reworked.

“And this is exactly what you are doing now. Not talking to me, and in the joint session you had with Jensen just saying what you think he wanted to hear…and it builds up inside you. I don’t think you even know why you are angry anymore. Or frustrated, or anxious. It’s the only way you know how to feel. But nothing’s working.”

“That’s the first thing that you’ve said that makes sense to me.”

“Which one? The _nothing’s working_?” she asks with a compassionate smile.

Jared grimaces. “Yeah.”

He presses the side of his knee hard enough to hurt for a brief moment before continuing. “The thing with Jensen. I’m trying.”

It’s relationship Jenga, he thinks. And Jared’s hands aren’t the most steady at the moment.

“Okay, what else isn’t working?”

Jared thinks.

Of the moments during drills where he sees Everett’s cheeky smile and thinks, _shit, I hope he comes home in one piece, because if he doesn’t, I’m going to fucking miss it_ , or sees Ford’s straight, impassive face during the morning run, always crossing the finish line just after Jared, _there, right next to him, and maybe one day he won’t be_.

That’s a whole other load of shit, which he will not admit to unless someone’s gun is pressing against an essential body part.

And, truth is, that part is working. Mostly. If he ignores the fact that they are gonna send these kids - _babies -_ out to the same hellholes he’s been. And they won’t all come back.

What else is there?

Jared’s life, final round-up: There’s Jensen. And there’s the army.

He’s realizing now which matters most to him.

Which is why he gets Jensen’s decision to resign from the unit.

So why is he angry? At who? At what? 

“Sergeant,” Cortese cuts through the mental maelstrom, “I’d argue that you’re simply adjusting. In light of all that is happening, you are finding new values - but they are diametrically opposed to those you cultivated before, so you don’t know how to integrate them in your identity.”

Jared frowns. “Say that again?”

Cortese looks like she’s choosing her words carefully. “I think you have reconsidered what serving and being a field soldier means to you, and you do not assign the heaviest weight to it anymore. Life-value wise. But that is what has been keeping you going all this time - and this new realization contradicts all that you have believed until now, doesn’t it?”

Right.

Jared ponders that for a minute. He doesn’t really have to, since every word rings true.

But if Jared accepts it, he’s jumping from a cliff without knowing what’s underneath: welcoming water or hard concrete.

“Does the offer to punch something still hold?”

Cortese hitting the nail on the head doesn’t bring relief, but a burning desire to get it out of him, to relieve himself of the pressure, to not -

“You’re still you, Sergeant. You’re still valuable. You still love your country and you would still do anything for your teammates. It’s simply that Jensen has become a higher priority.”

Okay. But is that a good or a bad thing?

~

This is why Jared needs action, adrenaline. Because without the most extreme of situations, without the exclusive focus needed to survive, his mind wanders. And when he finds Jensen sitting at their kitchen island when he gets home, taking care of bills with envelopes Jared has never seen before, Jared’s caught between the immense love he has for something so different, so appealing to him, and the acute sensation of wanting it being _wrong._

He presses a kiss to the top of Jensen’s hair as he passes by. “How was your physical therapy today?”

Jensen doesn’t raise his head to answer. “Good.” He stops writing on the piece of paper, however. “The kids?” he asks.

Jared shrugs. Pulls a glass from the cupboard.

“Fine.”

Scotch. Vodka. Beer. Not water. The things he wants - like he wants Jensen - and the ingrained, seemingly insurmountable fear that they will turn him into something he loathes.

“They’re doing well on the physical drills, mostly. With a few exceptions, like always.”

There’s always someone that quits. That isn’t built for this.

“But I don’t - I’m not sure at how to get their heads wrapped around the mental side of things.”

It’s not a new thing, it’s not the first time they’ve talked about this, but still, at the admission, Jensen’s eyes meet Jared’s gaze. Green, soft yet piercing, unchanged, even if time corrodes everything else. Jensen opens his mouth to say something. Then closes it again. Jared waits.

“You’re sure it can be done?” is what Jensen finally asks, tone carefully neutral.

It has to be possible. The hope for something else than the misery of being stuck between two places, two identities, it has to exist.

“Morgan asked for us tomorrow, at ten hundred hours,” Jared replies, finishing the conversation the only way he knows how, abruptly. He drinks the glass of water without any satisfaction, a habit, a way to bind reality to his mind.

Jensen nods and goes back to the papers.

Jared leaves for an evening run.

~

The thing is, they can do drama: the intense fights that catalyze explosive feelings followed by equally explosive making up. They can fly out into known enemy territory against orders to save one another. But their conversations are too often echoes of thoughts reverberating in a glass cage instead of real dialogue, declarations fearless but only half honest.

Their past is made of illusion as much as memories, ice that cracks with each step toward something real. They hadn't understood just how thin it is, not seeing that the big, the grand, the extreme were blankets to hide under, keeping them from seeing the truth of a relationship.

Because for a grand gesture, it only takes the courage of the decision. The immensity of joy if it works, the nothingness of having done everything if it fails. The freedom of having nothing to lose anymore, just to gain - a broken soldier, a man, maybe a body.

But that's gone now. The adrenaline. For both of them. The justification. All that they are left are the ugly pieces scattered between the wonderful, incredible, inimitable ones. The ice shattered, and they are drowning.

They have to make the decision to keep going every time. Not once, not twice. Every single time it feels like too much. Which, for Jared, is when Jensen touches him. A hand on his back, palm spread, warmth. Jared, frozen, not knowing how to respond. Because it's not the heat of the moment. It’s the tiny moments that break him - the two of them talking on the hood of Jared's truck, about how slow Everett's time is compared to Ford's, about what stupid regulation came down from up high, about acknowledging the anniversary of Chris’ death.

And then Jared thinks he should be dead, not Chris, not Chad. He should not be taking the space that was meant for them. This was not how it was supposed to go. _Good._ Life never prepared him for the situation in which he'd find someone that would love him. Truly. Desperately. Kindly. Consumingly.

It's so difficult to believe that he deserves happy.

Is there meaning in the quiet? Those moments, do they count?

He runs.

Jared takes notice of how things change around him. How running along their quiet, empty street can seem claustrophobic or liberating - in summers and winters, hot and cold, green and rust and desolate branches, cycles, days, months, seasons, all of them that Jared has to take one minute at a time.

The only constant - himself.

Loneliness.

The bottom of a rift between _normal_ and not. _Good_ and…

Are there really others who feel like that?

His vision becomes blurry. The tightness in his chest solidifies, suddenly, terrifyingly, and Jared’s feet become tangled strings in a puppeteer’s hand. He falls, frame by frame, hitting the pavement with his palm, but instinct and military training help Jared turn the loss of balance into something slightly more graceful than a nosedive. From all fours, he rotates and falls back on the concrete, heaving, hands trembling as they dangle over his skinned knees.

A present so sharp, so intense, so overwhelming –

No breaths.

No thoughts.

Bright, blank canvas.

Tears roll down Jared’s cheeks, uninvited. Gasping for air in between sobs, an avalanche that started as a shift in weight at the top of the mountain.

_Come on, Jared. Sergeant. Small. Start small._

Breaths. Counting the infinite ways he is screwing up.

It doesn’t help.

_Out._

_You need to let it out._

How? When that would be the equivalent of admitting that he’s not invincible, that everything he’s lived through has left a mark?

That he’s a sculpture made of smoke and ash, illusion broken by the tiniest touch of light.

_Your friends who died are heroes. But what was the purpose of their sacrifice?_

Pain. Filling his insides, dragging him down.

_Why is it, Sergeant, that you consider death the only way for a soldier to count?_

Because it’s easier.

Emptiness. Calm. It’s not a soldier’s wish, it’s a broken man’s desire to escape from the prison of his mind.

Selfish.

_Do_ _you wish to cause the same pain to those that love you?_

Jared doesn’t know how much time passes as he sits in the gravel. Stars are visible through the tree branches and he realizes he is shivering.

When he has something physical to focus on…he’s back inside himself.

_You do not need to be perfect, Sergeant._

Jared doesn’t want to be perfect. He wants to be put together. Not always in pieces.

_The pieces are you. You just need to accept them._

Is that Cortese? Is it him?

Jared doesn’t know anymore.

_But how does he do it?_

Simple: have no other option, become yourself in the most uncompromising of senses. Even if it means fracturing into a million pieces that maybe you can’t put together again.

And, maybe, trust that someone - _Jensen_ \- will be patient enough, will be there to let you put them back together in a better way.

~

Jensen is asleep when Jared enters their bedroom. Jared didn't ever think taking a bullet would be preferable to talking to Jensen. Well, to a non-essential area. But the feeling stands. He couldn’t have explained why his run had taken four times as long as usual.

He’s surprised and relieved - and _disappointed?_ \- that Jensen hadn’t waited up for him. Then he sees the note on his pillow.

_PT and work whipped my ass today. Couldn’t stay awake. Wake me in the morning. J_

He heads for the shower, tiptoeing around Jensen’s turned back.

The dark is quiet, wonderful, a bubble of safety around the earthquake that shook him.

Now, there’s only the aftermath. Damage. Structures, leveled to the ground.

But it’s good.

The worst has passed.

This is something for Jared to do: start anew, build stronger edifices.

_Flexible._

Meanings, interwoven in the walls.

_It will take time._

When he gets into bed beside Jensen, he has the same feeling he had standing outside the hospital when Jensen had been shot. Determination. Subdued. Putting in a foundation rather than a shiny new wing to his mental palace. Resolve. The trust that if he works, if he puts in the effort, it will be all right.

~

He disentangles himself from the arm Jensen’s draped over his chest so he can silence the chirping alarm. Studying Jensen’s face, Jared sees the lines of exhaustion. He decides to let him sleep in

Jared dresses quietly, the early morning light that is filtering into the room enough for him. He leaves his own note - _You look_ _ed_ _like you need your beauty sleep. See you at Morgan’s_ \- and heads out with a travel mug of coffee, leaving plenty in the pot for Jensen.

Jared’s going to the shooting range. He does it much less often than he used to, since it’s usually an exercise in frustration, rather than the relaxation and feel-good consequence of practicing something you’re good at.

Today, a few shots are perfect. Most miss the intended target by inches.

Hands are unsure.

But Jared’s determined to look at it differently today. Inches are better than feet. Two is better than none.

And he may not be able to shoot a can of beer off of Aldis’ head anymore - which is a story that involves a lot of too much trust, drinks, pride- but, hey, if any aliens attack, Jared’s fairly sure he’ll be an asset. Given there’s enough body surface/advantageous geometrical arrangement on the target.

It’s later than he realized when Jared packs the gun away. He wonders what Morgan could be calling them in for. Why would he need to see them both? Does it have something to do with _them_? Morgan’s always turned a blind eye to their private lives – does someone up the chain of command have a problem with them? _Now?_

He focuses on the feeling of _good enough_ to keep the negative spiral at bay.

Purpose. Every man needs one.

What he doesn’t need is his partner’s wide eyes when they meet, as Jensen goes from leaning casually on the gray wall leading to Morgan’s office, to alert, _where’s-the-bomb_ stance _._

“Jesus fuck,” Jensen mutters, “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

While Jared stays silent, Jensen focuses on Jared’s right hand and grabs it without finesse, presses his fingers along the scrape where the pavement had claimed layers of skin from his fall. And a fresh gouge from the gun grip, bleeding memory between his index finger and thumb.

Jensen stares at it, deliberates for a few seconds, then raises his head. And his eyebrow.

“Is this good or bad?”

It tries to be a joke - or, at least, to be light. It almost succeeds.

“Good,” Jared answers honestly.

He smiles tentatively. Shadows of a grin as genuine as _I’m fine_. He hopes Jensen understands. His left hand goes to Jensen’s right, finger traveling from the skin of his wrist to the back of Jensen’s hand.

He feels Jensen shift. The burn. The fire that ignites.

_Yeah,_ Jared thinks, _the small moments - they count._

As much as the big ones.

Because when Jared intertwines his fingers with Jensen’s, squeezing, feeling the warmth that radiates, it’s the same as the vague memories he has of Jensen’s palms on his cheeks, on his neck and arms back in the cell where Jared had thought he would die. It is the same feeling - coming home, again and again.

~

When they enter the colorless room, beige and gray in its entirety, small, but not cluttered, Morgan’s smile is way too big for Jared to consider it good. On the other hand, any smile probably means they aren’t in trouble, more like they’re going to get an assignment that they’re not going to like.

“Morning, Ackles, Padalecki,” Morgan rasps, sitting in his ratty leather chair, coffee cup in hand.

Standing straight, with their hands clasped to their backs, Jared and Jensen nod.

“Sit,” the colonel orders.

They do.

An awkward silence stretches. Both Jared and Jensen are afraid to start with the informal, _what’s up?_ they’ve used with Morgan in the past.

“Three dead soldiers at Fort Nove,” Morgan starts abruptly, no longer smiling. “Last week. You heard about them?”

Jared shakes his head.

“Suicide,” Jensen answers, letting his body fall into the back of the uncomfortable chair just a bit.

“Right,” Morgan explains to Jared. “Three in two days. Left notes, all three similar, all three saying that they don’t - that this isn’t working for them.”

“What isn’t?” _wasn’t,_ Jared corrects himself in his head.

Morgan gestures with his hand, an all-encompassing, but vague reply from which Jared can only gather that the answer is _the army_.

Jensen clears his throat. “It was a veteran and two cadets, in that order, to be more specific.” At Jared’s questioning expression, he continues, “The vet was former Delta, on assignment there in a teaching capacity. I coordinated with them after it happened to find someone to replace him.”

_Logistics._

This is Jensen’s job now, _coordinating_. Planning. Making phone calls instead of shooting at people.

“All three said something about going at it alone. They said they couldn’t find any release for all the bad shit, and they couldn’t continue like this.”

Morgan nods. “Exactly. Unfortunately, hell of an assignment for your first week on the job, Ackles. Nobody wants to do this shit ten seconds after it happens.” A pause. “And yet, life seems to go on regardless of who lives or dies.”

Maybe it’s Cortese’s new form of therapy - punch something, shoot at stuff - that prompts Jared to object to the colonel’s remark.

“The system goes on. Life doesn’t.”

Morgan looks deadly serious. “That’s the reason I asked you here.”

“Top brass ordered counseling groups be made available to all soldiers from now on to cover their asses,” Jensen interjects pointedly.

Huh. Isn’t relative insubordination Jared’s thing?

Morgan glares at Jensen now.

But maybe it is a diversionary tactic. Jensen really does love him.

“But we aren’t doing this to cover our asses.” Morgan leans forward. “It’s important to me. Lost too many soldiers, seen to many take that step over the brink, in more ways that you could imagine. So I want - shit, I _need_ there to be something for men on the edge to hold on to!”

Morgan takes a brief pause before continuing.

“That’s where you poster children for rehabilitating therapy come in.”

Jensen leans forward.

Jared’s hands instinctively ball into fists.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jensen asks, voicing Jared’s thought.

“We’re doing AA style, announcing gatherings at different hours, different places, different people. Each group has a team of leaders who are there just to listen, say they’ve been there, be an example that there’s a way to get past the bad stuff. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are covered, need someone for two more evenings.” He stops and stares at the two of them.

Jared says the first thing that pops into his mind. “You’re serious.”

“No, Padalecki. I’m pulling your leg, ‘cause three soldiers putting a gun to their head makes me laugh.”

“We - _I_ \- don’t - shit, Colonel, you can’t think I’m the right person for this?” Jared’s voice rises on the question mark.

“Padalecki, to my dismay, younger candidates don’t see you as the crazy motherfucker that you are, but as some kind of goddamn legend. Ackles, you too,“ Morgan continues, switching focus towards Jensen. “Beats me why, but baldy there’s a hit with the kids, they think everything bounces off his balls of steel. And you, Ackles. I’ve heard it through the grapevine that you’ve acquired powers of immortality.”

Jensen argues. “We don’t have any training. Not the kind required for this.”

Morgan purses his lips.

“Shit, Ackles, how many people you seen die? How many hours you spent wondering where the next bullet, the next bomb is going to hit? Wondering if you’re gonna live ten more minutes? Padalecki, you, how many you killed? Tens? Hundreds? Ever done something you thought you couldn’t live with?”

Chad.

It’s not really a question. Morgan already knows the answer.

“Whoever comes, take them to Devil’s Bar, play cards, set up a fight club for all I care. Point isn’t to treat them but to be there, and with your presence say, _I’ve seen some shit, I ain’t alright, not fully_. And here’s the thing. I know you, Padalecki, have been seeing the department shrink. And if you, a certified fucking _hero_ , can go talk to someone, then maybe it’s not a sign of weakness. They see you do this, they’ll know - “

“That they aren’t alone,” Jensen finishes.

Maybe.

Or Jared has a breakdown like the other day on the running trail, and all this goes to shit.

“Look, all I ask is you try it.”

There’s uncertainty creeping in Morgan’s voice. He’s not completely, one hundred percent sure of what he’s doing. It’s a leap of faith, Jared suddenly realizes.

One small moment, one small action, can re-arrange the ten million that aren’t working.

He’d be an asshole to say no - after all, isn’t that what he’s trying to do in therapy?

So Jared takes a deep breath, and says okay.

To hell with it.

Today, he’s ready to meet even the concrete.

~

Heading back to the truck Jared starts to have second - third - thoughts. He’s going to have to show everyone that he’s broken, Jared realizes, and just how much. He doesn’t know if he can do that. To distract himself, he looks at Jensen, tries to read his reaction to this.

Jensen’s staring at the ground, hands in his pockets as he walks beside Jared.

“You okay?” Jared asks out of habit.

Jensen doesn’t respond.

But Jared doesn’t repeat the question. He opens the door to the driver’s side and tries to distract himself by running through the schedule of his day in his mind. Wonders if having more things to do would be better or worse.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Jensen finally speaks. “Asking us. He shouldn’t have. It’s not protocol. It’s not - we can do more damage.”

Jared almost crushes the keys into the ignition when he attempts to start the car. “You mean _I can do more damage._ ”

The roar of the engine dissolves the implications. The radio starts blasting _Nirvana_.

Jensen reaches for the volume wheel. He turns it all the way down.

Turns towards Jared.

“You can do more damage to yourself,” Jensen says, softly, not responding to the aggressiveness in Jared’s accusation.

Jared can’t be of use. Because this version of him is too frail.

That’s what runs through his mind. 

And the instinct is to protest. Say, no, fuck that. Parachute into the task like he does in enemy territory, with only an approximation of the place he’d land. But that’s not what he wants to do. This idea, this thing forming in his mind - it’s bigger than that. He doesn’t want to screw up. Maybe that’s why the answer that comes out is surprisingly honest.

“I don’t think so, Jen. This…it’ll probably be harder than stealing a KGB man’s vodka, but - shit, doesn’t it seem like something that’s worth trying?”

It’s not a lot of certainty. Jared still very much doubts his abilities to help. But that doesn’t stop warm hope crawling through the cold that usually fills his chest.

Jared stops the car - well, the rumble of the engine, isn’t like they moved an inch from the parking space, leaving the keys in the ignition, sound of metal on metal a faint rustle as Jared rests his palms over his thighs. He turns towards Jensen, meets his gaze.

Jensen deserves that.

Seconds. Eternities of fear of unknown possibilities.

“Guess we’re doing it, then,” Jensen’s voice sounds out. A smile that spreads slowly, like that’s what he wanted to say from the start. “But maybe you should leave _run to Greenland_ out of your coping mechanisms suggestion list.”

“Why?” Jared replies, finding a grin of his own, a real one. “It’s one of my favorites.”

Jensen rolls his eyes.

“I like penguins.”

“You’ve never seen a penguin in your life,” Jensen laughs.

Jared huffs. “Not my fault the army sent me to the desert every fucking time.”

“I’ll take you there,” Jensen says, and it should be a joke, it should be silly, cheesy and stupid, except that’s everything the words are not. Jensen’s voice drops an octave, and his eyes go from emerald to forest green, darken, transition that makes the surface of Jared’s skin retrace all the lines Jensen had drawn with his touches in fire and ice. “We’ll go. One of these days.”

Where, why…

These are questions that completely fly out of his mind.

He reaches for Jensen, grabs the neck of his t-shirt, and pulls him in.

It’s about to get to the good stuff when a knock in the window interrupts.

Jared turns, the thought of reaching for his gun remaining just that, a thought. He frowns at Morgan on the other side.

“Don’t fuck in my parking lot,” the colonel warns.

Then walks off.

Well.

It’s not like they were going to. And, shit, isn’t even Morgan’s parking lot.

It’s going to be hard - harder than any combat mission he’s ever undertaken.

But they’ll do it together, broken pieces be damned.


End file.
